


Transitive Trust

by MakeBreakfastNotWar



Series: 30 Day Writing Challenge [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andrew's fear of falling, Anxiety, Gen, POV Andrew Minyard, Team Bonding, Trust, Trust Issues, andrew-centric, basophobia, falling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 00:39:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17294357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MakeBreakfastNotWar/pseuds/MakeBreakfastNotWar
Summary: Dan decides the Foxes could benefit from some team-building exercises.





	Transitive Trust

**Author's Note:**

> This is day two of the 30 day writing challenge I'm doing over on pillowfort! I won't be posting every day on ao3, only the ones that can stand alone as their own fics. 
> 
> Unbeta'd because I'm trying to churn these things out every day, so if you catch any typos please comment and let me know.

Andrew trudged into the lounge and sat down with his family, wondering what they were all doing here on their day off. Neil hadn’t told him what was going on, but he’d offered Andrew another carte blanche deal: anything Andrew wanted in exchange for his participation today.

 

“So,” Dan began, raising her voice a bit to get everyone’s attention. Once the Foxes fell silent, she continued. “I think we can all agree that our first game of the season could have gone better.” 

 

“No shit,” Jack interrupted. “Didn’t you guys win the championship last year? What the hell was that?”

 

Dan ignored Jack and pressed on. “Coach, Neil and I talked about it over the weekend, and we all agree on what the problem is: not all of us trust one another.” She very diplomatically didn’t single out the freshmen, but it was clear nonetheless that the six new players were the only change to the team since last year. 

 

“With that in mind, I’ve decided that we’re going to try some team-building exercises. If anyone is uncomfortable with any specific exercises, they’re welcome to sit out.” Andrew half-expected Jack and Sheena to get up and leave at that point, but Dan continued with a note of steel in her voice before anyone could move. “But if you try to get away with skipping out on the whole day because you think you’re too good for this team, Coach is happy to bench you for the next game or two.”

 

“But that’s not fair!” whined Sheena. 

 

“Life’s not fair,” Dan said. “Everyone out on the court, you don’t need your gear.”

 

At one end of the court there was what looked to be several small obstacle courses set up, but Dan lead them away from that. When they had all gathered towards the other end, she called their attention once again. 

 

“We’re going to start with trust falls,” she began. Well, now Andrew knew why Neil went to such extremes to try to ensure his participation. 

 

Dan instructed them to pair off with someone else on their line; backliners with goalies and defensive dealers, strikers with offensive dealers. Andrew thought he might be able to do the exercise with Renee, but Dan insisted that the point was for them to learn to trust the people they actually played with, and Andrew never shared the court with his friend. 

 

By the time they reached this conclusion, most of the rest of the defensive line had paired off already. They were an odd number but apparently that still wasn’t a good enough reason for Andrew to sit out, so he trudged over to join Aaron and the new defensive dealer sub, Amy. 

 

“Who’s first?” Amy asked, glancing between the twins.

 

“I’ll catch you,” Andrew found himself volunteering. He could catch Amy and then she could catch Aaron, and with any luck they would run out of time before it was Andrew’s turn to fall.

 

Andrew should have known better than to count on luck. Dan seemed happy to give everyone lots of time to take turns, and all too soon Aaron was moving into position behind Andrew. 

 

Okay. He could do this. Aaron might be an asshole, but he and Andrew had worked out most of their issues the year before. Andrew could trust his brother to catch him. 

 

“Any day now,” he heard from just behind him. He had spent too long psyching himself up, he had to just get it over with. 

 

“Are you ready?” Andrew asked. 

 

“Yes,” Aaron answered impatiently. Andrew glanced behind him anyway, and sure enough Aaron was standing right there, arms up and ready. 

 

Okay. He was going to do it. He started to lean back… and shifted his foot back at the last second, catching himself. 

 

Aaron sucked in a breath. “Shit,” he said, voice pitched low, just for Andrew. Amy was watching them both, wide-eyed. “It’s okay, Andrew. I’m right behind you.” His hands brushed Andrew’s back with the lightest of touches, as if to prove his point. “I’m not going to let you fall more than an inch or two, I promise. Try again.”

 

Andrew steeled himself, braced for an impact with the ground even though logically he knew it wouldn’t come. He fell back, and once again caught himself before he could touch his brother’s hands. 

 

“Okay,” Aaron said quietly. “Why don’t you just —” and he put his hands on Andrew’s back, a firmer presence this time. Andrew barely managed to keep himself from flinching at the sudden contact. “Just lean back and put your weight on my hands, and I’ll hold you up. That involves trust too, right?”

 

Sure. That didn’t sound so dangerous. Andrew tried to shift his weight back, but he couldn’t convince his body to cooperate. His feet stayed firmly planted on the ground. 

 

Suddenly Dan’s voice broke through his concentration. “Okay everyone, switch partners! Try the same exercise with someone else from your line.” 

 

Andrew stood up straight and stalked over to the bench. If he couldn’t manage it with Aaron, he certainly wasn’t going to try with anyone else on the defense line. 

 

Dan shot him an unimpressed look as he passed her, but he waved her off. “Just evening out the numbers, I’ll come back for the next one.”

 

Twenty minutes later, someone rapped on the glass in front of Andrew. He looked up to see Nicky beckoning him back onto the court, where everyone was once again clustered in front of the captain. 

 

Andrew opened the court door just in time to hear Dan tell everyone to get into groups of three, preferably with at least one person they hadn’t partnered for the trust fall exercise. Andrew beelined for Neil, but because he came onto the court midway through the instructions, he was too late. Neil shot him an apologetic look as Matt and Lily, the striker Neil had fought to recruit, pulled him away. Glancing around, Andrew managed to snag Kevin and Nicky for whatever this activity was going to be. 

 

“What are we doing?” Andrew asked Kevin when it became clear that Dan was done talking and he had missed all the important instructions. 

 

“One of us has to be blindfolded and the second person talks them through the obstacle course, but they’re only allowed to use verbal instructions,” Kevin told him. “The third person is a spotter, to make sure the blind one doesn’t get hurt if they trip.”

 

This, at least, was manageable. Andrew wouldn’t be expected to purposely fall in this activity, and if he did trip, at least he would be going forward and could rely on his own arms to break his fall.

 

Dan was walking around handing out blindfolds to each group, so Andrew snagged theirs from her. “I’ll go first,” he said, striding over to one of the obstacle courses. Better to get it out of the way. He committed the layout of the course to memory while he was waiting for Nicky and Kevin to catch up, although he knew he wouldn’t be able to judge the distances right once he was blindfolded. 

 

When Nicky and Kevin joined him, Andrew tied the blindfold over his eyes. “Nicky, you talk,” he said. 

 

“Okay,” Nicky began, “so you’re going to walk forward a couple feet and then— there, stop. There’s a ladder on the ground, you just have to step over each rung. Take slightly longer steps, you’re just barely clearing the rungs.” He continued, guiding Andrew through each section of the small course. 

 

Though he didn’t say anything, Andrew could practically feel Kevin hovering beside him, ready to intervene and make sure his precious goalie wasn’t injured. He told himself it wasn’t comforting. 

 

Andrew made it to the end unscathed, and then it was his turn to talk Kevin through the course. It took all his self-control not to let the striker trip or walk into something, but he reminded himself that Neil’s offer probably wouldn’t remain on the table if he didn’t behave. Then it was Kevin’s turn to instruct Nicky, and as Andrew had privately predicted, he was terrible at it. Andrew’s reflexes were probably the only reason his cousin didn’t end up with a concussion. 

 

This time when Dan called a halt to activities, she told everyone to sit in a circle on the fox paw at half court. She jogged off the court to grab something from her bag on the bench, and when she returned Andrew saw that it was a ball of yarn. 

 

“This next activity is about transitive trust,” she began. “So for example, Kevin and I don’t always see eye-to-eye. But I put my trust in Neil last year, and Neil trusted Kevin to know what the team needed leading up to our final game. So I did too.

 

“When you get the ball, you’re going to pass it to someone here that you trust. I’ll start. Renee!” She held on to one end of the yarn, and tossed the rest of the ball across the circle to Renee. 

 

Renee smiled and held onto the piece that connected her to Dan. “Brian!” she called, and passed the rest of the yarn to one of the freshman backliners. Brian tossed it to his roommate and fellow backliner Justin, who passed it to Amy. Soon it passed through all the freshmen, stopping on Jack. He threw it to Kevin, and suddenly it was coming towards Andrew. 

 

Andrew contemplated the ball in his hands. He knew he could toss it to Neil or Renee, that was what would be expected. But apparently some idiotic part of him was feeling sentimental today because he found himself lobbing it at Nicky, who was so unprepared that the yarn hit him square in the chest and dropped into his lap. 

 

Nicky looked close to tears. He stared at Andrew in wonder for a moment longer before picking up the yarn and turning away. “Aaron!” 

 

Aaron tossed the yarn to Matt, and it moved on from there. Soon it had gone through all the Foxes at least once but they kept going, sending it to new people. It came back to Andrew four times, and he sent it away to Aaron, Neil, Renee, and Kevin. 

 

At one point Wymack came onto the court to announce that he was ordering lunch for everyone, and without missing a beat, Allison yelled “Coach!” and sent the remainder of the yarn ball flying towards him. There wasn’t enough yarn left for it to reach Wymack, so it just fluttered sadly to the ground several feet outside of the circle. Most of the team burst into laughter, and Andrew even felt a traitorous smile twitching at the corner of his own mouth. 

 

He felt Neil’s eyes on him and made himself scowl at his boyfriend. “187% Josten,” Andrew said. It had no effect on the unreasonably smug look on Neil’s face. 

 

*

 

After lunch they had one more activity to finish the day off. Dan brought a small square platform onto the court, no more than two feet wide, and stood on it to address her team. 

 

“For our last exercise, we’re going to try to all stand on this block with no one touching the ground,” she announced. “We have to try to stay on for at least thirty seconds. Coach will time us.”

 

The Foxes all crowded around the block to strategize. It was decided that the tallest people should be in the middle, because they were the most likely to unbalance the group if they were hanging off the edges. That meant that Andrew, Aaron and Neil would be among some of the last to get on the block. 

 

Andrew stood back and waited while the others arranged themselves. Finally, he was putting his toes on the edge, holding onto Neil for support who in turn had his arm reached forward to hold Matt. 

 

Lily was the last to jump up on the opposite side. As she did, her momentum pushed through the team and Andrew felt himself slipping, and he knew this was it. He let go of Neil rather than bring him down too. It couldn’t have been more than a second, but it felt like an eternity as he waited for his head to crack on the floor of the court. 

 

Then, as quickly as the movement had started, it stopped. He opened his eyes. (When had he closed them?) He glanced down and saw a hand fisted in his shirt. He followed it and found Aaron, somehow having managed to plant himself despite barely being further onto the block than Andrew. 

 

His brother had caught him. 

 

_ He was safe. _


End file.
